300px, Hotel Vendome, Boston as it appeared circa 1880 The Hotel Vendome fire in the United States was the worst firefighting

tragedy Tragedy (from the grc-gre, τραγῳδία, ''tragōidia'', ''tragōidia'') is a genre of drama based on human suffering and, mainly, the terrible or sorrowful events that befall a main character. Traditionally, the intention of tragedy ...

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

history. Nine

firefighters A firefighter is a first responder and rescuer extensively trained in firefighting, primarily to extinguish hazardous fires that threaten life, property, and the environment as well as to rescue people and in some cases or jurisdictions also ...

were killed during the final stages of extinguishing a fire on June 17, 1972. The Hotel Vendome was on the southwest corner of the intersection of Commonwealth Avenue and Dartmouth Street, in the

Back Bay Back Bay is an officially recognized neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, built on reclaimed land in the Charles River basin. Construction began in 1859, as the demand for luxury housing exceeded the availability in the city at the time, and t ...

area of Boston.

Background

The Vendome was a luxury hotel built in 1871 in Back Bay, just north of

Copley Square Copley Square , named for painter John Singleton Copley, is a public square in Boston's Back Bay neighborhood, bounded by Boylston Street, Clarendon Street, St. James Avenue, and Dartmouth Street. Prior to 1883 it was known as Art Square due to it ...

. A massive expansion was undertaken in 1881 according to plans by architect J. F. Ober and completed in 1882. During the 1960s, the Vendome suffered four small fires. In 1971, the year of the original building's centennial, the Vendome was sold. The new owners opened a restaurant called Cafe Vendome on the first floor, and began renovating the remaining hotel into condominiums and a shopping mall.

Fire and collapse

The building was largely empty the afternoon of Saturday June 17, 1972, except for a few people performing renovations. One of the workers discovered that a fire had begun in an enclosed space between the third and fourth floors, and at 2:35 p.m. rang

Box A box (plural: boxes) is a container used for the storage or transportation of its contents. Most boxes have flat, parallel, rectangular sides. Boxes can be very small (like a matchbox) or very large (like a shipping box for furniture), and can ...

1571. A working fire was called in at 2:44 p.m., and subsequent alarms were rung at 2:46 p.m., 3:02 p.m., and 3:06 p.m. A total of 16 engine companies, five ladder companies, two aerial towers, and a heavy rescue company responded. The fire was largely under control by 4:30 p.m.. Several crews, including

Boston Fire Department The Boston Fire Department provides fire protection and first responder emergency medical services to the city of Boston, Massachusetts. It also responds to such incidents as motor vehicle accidents, hazardous material spills, utility mishaps, f ...

Ladder 13 and Engines 22 and 32, remained on scene performing overhaul and cleanup. At 5:28 p.m., without warning, all five floors of a section at the southeast corner of the building collapsed, burying Ladder 15 and 17 firefighters beneath a two-story pile of debris. Nine of the firefighters died, making this the worst firefighting disaster in Boston history in terms of loss of life. The men who were killed were: *Firefighter Thomas W. Beckwith * Firefighter Joseph F. Boucher * Lieutenant Thomas J. Carroll * Firefighter Charles E. Dolan * Lieutenant John E. Hanbury Jr. * Firefighter John E. Jameson * Firefighter Richard B. Magee * Firefighter Paul J. Murphy * Firefighter Joseph P. Saniuk

Aftermath

District Fire Chief John P. Vahey wrote a comprehensive report on the Vendome fire. Although the cause of the original fire was not known, the subsequent collapse was attributed to the failure of an overloaded steel column whose support had been weakened when a new duct had been cut beneath it, triggered by the weight of the firefighters and their equipment on the upper floors. On June 17, 1997—the 25th anniversary of the Vendome fire—a

monument A monument is a type of structure that was explicitly created to commemorate a person or event, or which has become relevant to a social group as a part of their remembrance of historic times or cultural heritage, due to its artistic, his ...

was dedicated on the

Commonwealth Avenue Mall Commonwealth Avenue (colloquially referred to as Comm Ave by locals) is a major street in the cities of Boston and Newton, Massachusetts. It begins at the western edge of the Boston Public Garden, and continues west through the neighborhoods o ...

, a few yards from the site of the fire. The monument features a fireman's helmet and coat cast in bronze draped over a low arc of dark granite. An inscription bears the timeline of the fire and the names of the men who died. One faces the site of the fire when reading the names. After the fire, the Vendome was successfully renovated, hosting 110 residential condominium units and 27 commercial units, including a restaurant.

References

Additional sources

* Bunting, Bainbridge, ''Houses of Boston's Back Bay: An Architectural History, 1840-1917'', 1967, * Moore, Barbara W. and Weesner, Gail, ''Back Bay: A Living Portrait'', 1995, * Sammarco, Anthony Mitchell, ''Images of America: Boston's Back Bay'', 1997, * Schorow, Stephanie, ''Boston on Fire: A history of Fires and Firefighting in Boston'', 2003, * Shand-Tucci, Douglass, ''Built in Boston: City and Suburb 1800-1950'', 1988, * Southworth, Susan & Michael. ''The Boston Society of Architects' AIA Guide to Boston'', 1992,

External links

Boston Fire Department web page about the Hotel Vendome fire
via

Wayback Machine The Wayback Machine is a digital archive of the World Wide Web founded by the Internet Archive, a nonprofit based in San Francisco, California. Created in 1996 and launched to the public in 2001, it allows the user to go "back in time" and see ...

Vendome Memorial photos June 17, 2019
via

SmugMug SmugMug is a paid image sharing, image hosting service, and online video platform on which users can upload photos and videos. The company also facilitates the sale of digital and print media for amateur and professional photographers. On April ...

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